The Pidhi.

At another routine day back after the Pujas in the library today, I was staring off into nothingness, looking back at my research of over two years now, mentally restructuring and simultaneously trying to come up with a world-stopping theory, when I realised that for quite some time now I had been looking out of the window at the astrologer sitting on the pavement, complete with his parrot.

Now I had never quite shared the disdain that quite a few of my peers have for him- overt or covert.Rather, I quite like him. His bread is as much an honest living as any one else's. And it is a hard living. Imagine trying to make perfect strangers believe in obscure, inscrutable forces and unfelt energies in the fragmented, disillusioned and marketed world we live in today.

And as I looked at him again, I realised that but for his very, very benign looks,he could have been a terrifying figure.Would I really want to have his well-trained parrot choose a card for me and me come to know of an insipid or perhaps even painful future? Have the knowledge of the yet-to-come shadow my small beautiful moments? Even if the knowledge comes with the assurance of remedy, really, who in their right minds would want it? Because what really, really worries me is the question of whether we have the power to shape our own futures. Of course, over time I have come to understand that unless we look at it theologically, our answers to this would be directly dependent on the measure of success achieved.

But, again as I saw a man sit down on the pidhi  beside the parrot, I reflected that there is, after all a very fine line between foolishness and bravery, and till I manage to find the courage  to  make my way towards the now occupied pidhi, I remain sitting on a fence.

(Posted at 11:28 pm)

"What's gone and what's past help Should be past grief."

No more be done:

We should profane the service of the dead

To sing a requiem, arid such rest to her

As to peace-parted souls.

Lay her i' th' earth,

And from her fair and unpolluted flesh

May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest,

A minist'ring angel shall my sister be

When, thou liest howling.

Shakespeare, Hamlet.

The Notebook.

I have been coming across many good movies, all one after the other and I wonder why. This Isn't quite like how things happen to me.

Watched 'The Notebook' , a conventional romance in every way except that its so much more beautiful. At the end of the movie I wanted to stand up and award Robert Fraisse with the Oscar for best cinematography except that he probably wouldn't attach too much importance to it even if I e-mailed him one. There aren't any layers to this, and watch it simply for a visual treat, or maybe when you are down and out and low and lonely.( So in hindsight I probably watched it at a wrong time)

What is it with the Romances? Hindi or English, they are all the same and yet they never fail to bring a spring in my step. And oh, did I mention that it's set in the early 1940's? and again, what's with me and the past? Period Dramas or Historical plays I lap it all up.

I remember S suggesting I see '13 Going on 30', but the future and their projected sciences merely intrigue me, they don't captivate me, enthrall me, make me wonder at what once was.
There is certainty and comfort in the past, the future brings mere doubt.

It rivals 'A Walk To Remember' and that, my friends, is saying something.

Watch it, and discover what it is like to long to visit distant lands and want to see beautiful places, hold them in still pictures and yellowed albums.